Getting it done

11.07.10

My pursuit of an R12 award continues. To earn it, I will have to ride at least one route of 200k or longer each month for a year. This is month eight. The route is the Schuylkill to Delaware loop. It is 200 kilometers. I rode this route once before, but because that ride started at midnight, my memory of the first half of the ride is one of following a small pool of light along a road under a night sky. This time, I start just after dawn.

10 miles

10.31.2010

Yesterday, I ran 10 miles. More than seven years have passed since I last ran that far. More than five years since an orthopedic surgeon implanted a donor ACL and repaired a torn meniscus.  Before that, running was a staple meditation. Two sub four hour marathons, more 5ks and 10ks than I can remember and the better part of 16 years of runs through neighborhood street and local parks with my always ready, always willing lab/shepherd mix.

Then I had the surgery, and my dog died, and I gained weight. And the memory of 20 minute 5ks and 42 minute 10ks and seemingly effortless easy 10 milers became an anchor I dragged through every post-surgery jog/walk. I avoided mile markers and watches and timing and tried to just jog or even walk for exercise.

Loop around Lancaster

10.17.2010

Driving into the parking lot, a bank's red digitized time and temperature sign alternately flashed 6:50 a.m. and 38 degrees. Leaving the car, the cold sifted through the thin fabrics of my windbreaker and tights to settle against my skin. I wondered if leaving the wool tights at home was a good idea after all. Ephrata was quite a bit colder than the neighborhood I'd left an hour and a half ago. 38 degrees. Glad to have my winter gloves and softshell vest, I loaded the bags on to the bike and headed across the street to the first controle.

Death of ultracycling great - Jure Robic.

Came across this article in the NY Times:

Jure Robic, a long-distance bicyclist who won the grueling Race Across America five times and whose seemingly endless, sleep-eschewing stamina tested the limits of human endurance, died during a training ride on Friday when he collided with a car on a mountain road in Plavski Rovt, Slovenia, near his home in Jesenice. He was 45.

400K - Bremerton, WA to Pacific City, OR

Exceeding physical limitations comes at a cost. In the late spring, completing a 300k brevet put me in the hospital where specialists had to fix the damage I inflicted on myself when I ignored the cramps, thirst, fatigue and racing heart rate that should have warned me against pushing too hard too long. I returned to riding brevets, but had not gone that far since. The longest one day bike ride in my life had been the 190 miles it took to finish the 300k. This brevet would be 400K. Fear tinged my anticipation.

Night lights

On the last Saturday night of the summer of 2010, I rode through the wilds of the New Jersey Pine Barrens with an Ancien.

I met Len on my first brevet. At that point, I only had the slightest idea what it meant to be a randonneur, and had never heard the term Ancien. Since that day, I've learned a little more. 

She ain't heavy, she's my Surly.

One year ago this weekend, I DNF'd at a local century. After going way off course, I had to call for directions to the closest rest stop, get there, then wait for one of the volunteers, a very nice guy named Bob, to drive me the last 20 miles. I wasn't hurt, didn't have a mechanical. Oh, I had other excuses, a bunch of them, I started the course way too fast, I bonked. I got lost and did a bunch of bonus miles, but inside I knew that, despite all that, I just didn't have it in me to finish that ride that day. I had just quit. It was a long drive back to the start.

My any road, any ride, bike is an olive drab Surly Long Haul Trucker with SKS fenders, a Brooks B17, 40 mm Schwalbe marathons, a VO Campagne handle bar bag up front on a nitto mini rack and a hard leather, former military, binocular case as a seat bag.  For the non bike addicted, just picture a military green bike with thick tires and small squarish luggage looking bags attached front and rear. It looks like it could ride through pretty much anything. It pretty much can. It also looks heavy. It kinda is. Especially when compared to the bikes that are around me when I ride her. I call her Esmeralda.